The Daily Courier, Forest City, NC, Tuesday, June 29, 2010 — 13
Nation
Court ruling extends gun rights to states
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court held Monday that Americans have the right to own a gun for self-defense anywhere they live, expanding the conservative court’s embrace of gun rights since John Roberts became Chief Justice. By a 5-4 vote, the justices cast doubt on handgun bans in the Chicago area, but signaled that some limitations on the Constitution’s “right to keep and bear arms” could survive legal challenges. On its busy final day before a three-month recess, the court also ruled that a public law school can legally deny recognition to a Christian student group that won’t let gays join, jumped into the nation’s charged immigration debate by agreeing to review an employer sanctions law from Arizona and said farewell to Justice John Paul Stevens, who is retiring after more than 34 years. In the guns case, Justice Samuel Alito said for the court that the Second Amendment right “applies equally to the federal government and the states.” The court was split along familiar ideological lines, with five conservative-moderate justices in favor of gun rights and four liberals opposed. Roberts voted with the majority. Two years ago, the court declared that the Second Amendment protects an individual’s right to possess guns, at least for purposes of self-defense in the home. That ruling applied only to federal laws. It struck down a ban on handguns and a trigger lock requirement for other guns in the District of Columbia, a federal city with unique legal standing. At the same time, the court was careful not to cast doubt on other regulations of firearms here. Gun rights proponents almost immediately filed a federal lawsuit challenging gun control laws in Chicago and its suburb of Oak Park, Ill., where handguns have been banned for nearly 30 years. The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence says those laws appear to be the last two remaining outright bans. Lower federal courts upheld the two laws, noting that judges on those benches were bound by Supreme Court precedent and that it would be up to the high court justices to ultimately rule on the true reach of the Second Amendment. The Supreme Court already has said that most of the guarantees in the Bill of Rights serve as a check on state and local, as well as federal, laws. Monday’s decision did not explicitly strike down the Chicago area laws. Instead, it ordered a federal appeals court to reconsider its ruling. But it left little doubt that the statutes eventually would fall. Chicago Mayor Richard Daley said he was disappointed with the ruling, adding that officials already are at work rewriting the ordinance to meet the court’s gun rights guarantee. Alito made plain that local officials still have some leeway in crafting gun laws. He noted that the declaration that the Second Amendment is fully binding on states and cities “limits (but by no means eliminates) their ability to devise solutions to social problems that suit local needs and values.” Justices John Paul Stevens and Stephen Breyer, joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor, each wrote a dissent. Stevens said that unlike the Washington case, Monday’s decision “could prove far more destructive — quite literally — to our nation’s communities and to our constitutional structure.”
Associated Press
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., swears in Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan on Capitol Hill in Washington,Monday during her confirmation hearings before the committee.
Kagan vows to be unbiased WASHINGTON (AP) — Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan pledged at her Senate confirmation hearing Monday to show the “evenhandedness and impartiality” the Constitution demands if she is confirmed, and to offer proper deference to Congress and the laws it makes. The court must ensure that “our government never oversteps its proper bounds or violates the rights of individuals,” she said before a rapt Judiciary Committee and a nationwide television audience on the opening day of her hearing. “But the court must also recognize the limits on itself and respect the choices made by the American people.” The 50-year-old solicitor general and former Harvard Law School dean appeared on track for confirmation before the high court opens a new term in October as she delivered a brief statement at the end of a day of senatorial speechmaking. Kagan stopped by the Oval Office of the White House to receive best wishes from President Barack Obama on her way to the hearing. A few moments and little more than a mile distant, she strode with a smile into the committee room and took her place at the witness table — where senatorial ritual then required her to sit for hours while lawmakers delivered prepared speeches from an elevated dais across the room. Finally, at mid-afternoon, it was her turn. “I will listen hard, to every party before the court
and to each of my colleagues. I will work hard. And I will do my best to consider every case impartially, modestly, with commitment to principle and in accordance with law,” she said. Kagan faces hours of questioning, both friendly and otherwise, when the panel meets on Tuesday, a grilling that she has spent hours preparing for under the tutelage of White House advisers. Already the political fault lines were well-drawn. “I believe the fair-minded people will find her philosophy well within the legal mainstream,” said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., the panel’s chairman. “I welcome questions but urge senators on both sides to be fair. No one should presume that this intelligent woman who has excelled during every part of her varied and distinguished career, lacks independence.” But the committee’s senior Republican signaled that Kagan can expect tough questioning. “It’s not a coronation but a confirmation process,” said Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama. He said she had “less real legal experience of any nominee in at least 50 years.” And he said her decision to bar military recruiters from Harvard Law School’s career services office was in violation of the law — a legal conclusion disputed by the White House. Leahy and Sessions both said they hoped Kagan would answer questions candidly, although the chairman also cautioned, “No
senator should seek to impose an ideological litmus test to secure promises of specific outcomes in cases coming before the Supreme Court.” Judging by recent confirmation history, there was little chance that Kagan would run afoul of that admonition. In the past quarter century, most nominees have pledged fealty to the Constitution and legal precedent — and little else — in their efforts to win approval. Obama nominated Kagan to succeed retiring Justice John Paul Stevens, a frequent dissenter in a string of 5-4 rulings handed down by a conservative majority under Chief Justice John Roberts. Kagan’s opening statement touched on her parents’ growing up in immigrant communities. She also praised Stevens, expressed a debt of gratitude to Justices Sandra Day O’Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg for living “pioneering lives” and described the current members of the court in glowing terms. She also recalled a clerkship nearly a quarter-century ago for Justice Thurgood Marshall, who she said viewed the court as the part of government most open to everyone. “The idea is engraved on the very face of the Supreme Court building: Equal Justice Under Law,” she said. “What this commands of judges is evenhandedness and impartiality. What it promises is nothing less than a fair shake for every American.”
Doctors blame overtesting on the fear of lawsuits
CHICAGO (AP) — Ninety percent of physicians surveyed said doctors overtest and overtreat to protect themselves from malpractice lawsuits. That sentiment is more common among male doctors than female doctors, according to the survey published Monday in Archives of Internal Medicine. The findings echo a recent Associated Press story in which many emergency room doctors said
lawsuit fears are the main reason for overtreating in the ER. The Archives survey of 1,231 physicians nationwide included ER doctors and other specialists, surgeons and primary care doctors. The survey asked two questions: “Do physicians order more tests and procedures than patients need to protect themselves from malpractice suits?” And, “Are protections against unwarranted mal-
practice lawsuits needed to decrease the unnecessary use of diagnostic tests?” Overall, 91 percent of doctors surveyed agreed with both statements. Survey co-author Dr. Tara Bishop, an internist at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, said the results jibe with what she hears from colleagues. “When you sit around at a dinner party with doctors, malpractice fears and a kind
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of hatred of the malpractice system really comes up as a common theme,” Bishop said. Paul Perantinides, a medical malpractice attorney in Akron, Ohio said most of his cases involve doctors failing to test — a point that Bishop said emphasizes why doctors sometimes order so many tests. Bishop said lawsuit fears sometimes play a role in her own decisions to order tests, “particularly if it’s a high-risk
patient.” Bishop noted that defensive medicine is estimated to cost the U.S. health care system billions of dollars each year, and said many doctors worry they could be sued even when they follow standardof-care guidelines. Overall, almost 93 percent of male physicians said doctors order unnecessary tests because of malpractice concerns, versus 87 percent of female physicians.
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